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Developer Tools · head to head

ConfigCat vs GrowthBook

ConfigCat logo

ConfigCat

Developer Tools

Feature flag service priced per flag and environment with unlimited seats and unlimited monthly active users

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
GrowthBook logo

GrowthBook

Testing

Open source feature flags and A/B testing that run experiment analysis inside your own data warehouse

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: ConfigCat there is no experimentation or statistical analysis engine, so teams wanting real A/B tests with significance testing must buy and integrate a separate analytics or experimentation product.; GrowthBook warehouse-native analysis is only an advantage if you have a warehouse with clean event data in it; without one, GrowthBook has nothing to compute against and you are back to buying an event-collecting platform.
  • They diverge on capability: ConfigCat covers Feature flags and configuration, GrowthBook covers Feature flags.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which ConfigCat and GrowthBook actually diverge.

Attributes where ConfigCat and GrowthBook differ
AttributeConfigCatGrowthBook
Pricing modelPer month by feature flag and environment countPer user per month
PlatformsWeb, API, iOS, Android, Node.js, .NET, Java, Python, GoWeb, Self-hosted, Docker
CategoryDeveloper ToolsTesting

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in ConfigCat

  • Feature flags and configuration
  • Percentage rollouts
  • Targeting rules and segments
  • Unlimited seats
  • Global CDN delivery
  • Audit log
  • Public API and webhooks
  • SDKs across languages

Only in GrowthBook

  • Feature flags
  • Warehouse-native analysis
  • Reusable metric definitions
  • Bayesian and frequentist engines
  • CUPED variance reduction
  • Visual editor
  • Self-hosting
  • Guardrail metrics

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

ConfigCat

  • A consumer or mobile app with millions of users where per-MAU flag pricing would cost more than the flags are worthnot GrowthBook
  • A team that wants every engineer, product manager and support agent to have a login without paying per seatnot GrowthBook
  • Decoupling deployment from release with percentage rollouts and a kill switch, without buying an experimentation platformnot GrowthBook
  • A small team that needs ten flags permanently and can run indefinitely on the free tiernot GrowthBook

GrowthBook

  • An engineering team that wants feature flags without a per-monthly-active-user bill that grows with product successnot ConfigCat
  • A data team that needs experiment results to reconcile exactly with the metrics reported in its BI toolnot ConfigCat
  • A company with data residency or privacy constraints that cannot send user-level event data to a third-party vendornot ConfigCat
  • Running long-tail experiments where sequential testing and CUPED shorten the time to a decision on low-traffic surfacesnot ConfigCat

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

ConfigCat

  • There is no experimentation or statistical analysis engine, so teams wanting real A/B tests with significance testing must buy and integrate a separate analytics or experimentation product.
  • Pricing by flag count punishes exactly the hygiene you want: the Pro tier caps at 100 flags, so teams that do not aggressively retire stale flags are pushed to the 325 dollar Smart tier for housekeeping reasons rather than growth.
  • The free tier allows only 2 environments, which does not cover the common development, staging and production split, so almost any real deployment starts on a paid plan.
  • It is a smaller vendor than the category incumbents, so enterprise procurement teams will find less depth in compliance attestations, contractual terms and reference architecture than LaunchDarkly offers.
  • Flag evaluation relies on SDK-side caching of a CDN-delivered config, which is fast but means propagation of a change is eventually consistent rather than instant, something to understand before relying on it as an emergency kill switch.

GrowthBook

  • Warehouse-native analysis is only an advantage if you have a warehouse with clean event data in it; without one, GrowthBook has nothing to compute against and you are back to buying an event-collecting platform.
  • Metrics are SQL, so a marketing or product team without data engineering support cannot define or fix them, and a badly written metric silently produces a confident wrong answer.
  • Cloud Pro bills per seat and then adds CDN request and bandwidth overages, so a high-traffic site can find the variable component exceeds the seat cost it budgeted for.
  • Self-hosting means you own the Mongo database, the SDK endpoint availability and the upgrade path, and a flag service that is down is a production incident, not an analytics inconvenience.
  • The statistics engine exposes real choices, Bayesian versus frequentist, sequential testing, variance reduction, and the tool will not stop a team that configures them wrongly, so it rewards statistical literacy and punishes its absence.

Pricing, plan by plan

ConfigCat

Free
  • Forever FreeFree
    • 10 feature flags
    • 2 environments and 2 products
    • 2 segments
  • Pro$110/month
    • 100 feature flags
    • 3 environments and 3 products
    • Unlimited seats and MAUs
  • Smart$325/month
    • Unlimited feature flags
    • Unlimited environments, products and segments
    • Unlimited seats and MAUs
  • Enterprise$900/month
    • Everything in Smart
    • Enterprise support and controls
    • Unlimited everything on flag counts

GrowthBook

Free
  • Open source (self-hosted)Free
    • Unlimited users, feature flags and experiments
    • One project
    • MIT licensed, you run the infrastructure
  • Starter (cloud)Free
    • Up to 3 users
    • 1 project
    • Unlimited flags, experiments and traffic
  • Pro (cloud)$40/month
    • Per seat, up to 50 users
    • 3 projects
    • CDN overage at $10 per million requests beyond the included allowance
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Unlimited users and projects
    • SSO, audit logs and advanced permissions
    • Available on cloud or self-hosted

Which should you pick?

Choose ConfigCat if

  • You need feature flags and configuration.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, API, iOS, Android, Node.js, .NET, Java, Python, Go.
  • You also want percentage rollouts.
ConfigCat review

Choose GrowthBook if

  • You need feature flags.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Self-hosted, Docker.
  • You also want warehouse-native analysis.
GrowthBook review

Questions people ask

Is ConfigCat or GrowthBook better?
Neither clearly leads. ConfigCat starts at Free and GrowthBook at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, ConfigCat or GrowthBook?
ConfigCat starts at Free and GrowthBook at Free.
Does ConfigCat or GrowthBook run on more platforms?
ConfigCat runs on Web, API, iOS, Android, Node.js, .NET, Java, Python, Go. GrowthBook runs on Web, Self-hosted, Docker.
Can I use ConfigCat for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is ConfigCat best used for?
ConfigCat is most often used for a consumer or mobile app with millions of users where per-mau flag pricing would cost more than the flags are worth, a team that wants every engineer, product manager and support agent to have a login without paying per seat, decoupling deployment from release with percentage rollouts and a kill switch, without buying an experimentation platform, a small team that needs ten flags permanently and can run indefinitely on the free tier. Of those, a consumer or mobile app with millions of users where per-mau flag pricing would cost more than the flags are worth and a team that wants every engineer, product manager and support agent to have a login without paying per seat are not what GrowthBook is typically brought in for.
What can ConfigCat do that GrowthBook cannot?
ConfigCat covers Feature flags and configuration, Percentage rollouts, Targeting rules and segments, Unlimited seats. GrowthBook covers Feature flags, Warehouse-native analysis, Reusable metric definitions, Bayesian and frequentist engines.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

ConfigCat: How is ConfigCat priced?

By feature flag, environment and product count. Seats, monthly active users and flag reads are unlimited on every plan.

GrowthBook: Is the self-hosted version actually usable, or crippled?

It is genuinely usable: unlimited users, flags and experiments on one project under an MIT licence. The paid tiers add multiple projects, SSO, audit logs and support.

ConfigCat: Is the free tier usable?

For small projects yes, but at 10 flags and 2 environments it will not cover a dev, staging and production setup.

GrowthBook: Do I need a data warehouse?

For experiment analysis, effectively yes. Feature flagging works without one, but the reason to choose GrowthBook over a flag-only tool is the warehouse-native statistics.

ConfigCat: Can it run A/B tests?

It can split traffic, but there is no statistics engine. You need a separate analytics tool to decide a winner.

GrowthBook: How does the cost compare with LaunchDarkly or Optimizely?

GrowthBook charges per seat rather than per monthly active user or per tracked event, so cost stops scaling with traffic. At high volume that difference is large.

ConfigCat: How fast does a flag change take effect?

SDKs poll and cache, so changes propagate on the polling interval rather than instantly.

GrowthBook: Does it support mobile and server-side flags?

Yes, there are SDKs across JavaScript, React, Python, Go, Ruby, PHP, Java, Kotlin, Swift and more, covering client, server and mobile evaluation.

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